


Cloud Diner

by goldenheadfreckledheart



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 02:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4648065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenheadfreckledheart/pseuds/goldenheadfreckledheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke Griffin dreams about the same boy every night after her father’s death. He helps her through tough times and she returns the favor. There’s no way he’s real, right?</p>
<p>A Bellarke Soulmates AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloud Diner

Clarke meets him when she’s thirteen and her father is two weeks dead.

And by ‘meets’ she means she dreams him into being. She must still be pretty messed up in the head; Why else would she make up someone who wants nothing to do with her?

In her dream, she walks into a 1950s style diner that’s nearly identical to the one her father used to take her to on his days off work, complete with red vinyl seats and checkered linoleum floor. And it seems perfectly natural, as things do in dreams, that when she looks out the windows, nothing surrounds the establishment but fluffy white clouds and a clear blue sky.

She orders a chocolate milkshake—because that’s what you  _do_  in diners—before she notices him, sulking in the back corner. He’s wearing all black in a way that looks more like he doesn’t care than any intentional style and he’s sitting sideways in the booth, back against the wall and long legs extending to the end of the bench seat. If she had to guess, she’d say he was two years older than her.

She approaches him without intending to, sipping at her milkshake before she pipes up.

“Hi.”

She gets a grunt in return and can’t read any emotion on his face where his too-long hair is falling into his eyes.

“Can I sit here?” The rest of the diner is empty, but it seems like the thing to do.

His grunt this time is paired with a shrug, which she takes as a yes as she slides in across from him. She kicks her feet aimlessly beneath the table and stares out the window for a moment, still sipping at her remarkably bland milkshake.

“Who are you?” she asks after a while.

He doesn’t even look at her. “I don’t want to talk.”

She might be annoyed if he didn’t look so sad, now that she can see him up close. And she kind of knows what it’s like to not want to talk to anybody.

“Okay.”

And then she wakes up.

The whole thing wouldn’t be strange at all if she didn’t dream the exact same thing two days later.

She forgoes the milkshake for cherry pie this time, which, if she concentrates hard enough, does taste vaguely sweet.

He’s in the back corner again, but he’s wearing a red shirt today and he somehow looks younger to her.

She slips into the booth without asking this time, and offers him a tiny, tentative smile, which she _thinks_  he returns. At least he’s not scowling, which is an improvement over last time.

“My name is um…”

She hesitates. He’s not real, obviously. Clearly he’s not. But still, her mother has instilled a fear of strangers in her.

“You can call me C…if you want.”

He hardly looks at her as she speaks, and she’s a hundred percent sure he’s going to ignore her.

“I guess that makes me B then.” His voice is deep, deeper than she thinks a 15 year old should sound. But Wells has been talking about puberty and how he hopes his voice will drop, so she thinks that must be what’s happened with him.

That was before Wells and his family moved away of course—just after her father’s death. She hasn’t forgiven him, and doesn’t really intend to. He was supposed to be her  _best friend._ Best friends don’t just leave after something like that.

In a way, she’s kind of glad to have someone to talk to, even if he’s not real.

She grins at him. “Hi. Why are you here?”

It’s the kind of question her mother would chastise for being too forward, or rude, but she doesn’t care.

The boy, B, just shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe ‘cause my mom just died. She used to take me and my sister to a place like this all the time.”

Clarke grins even wider, which must confuse him for a second before she explains, “Me too! Well, except, it’s my dad that died, and I don’t have a sister. But we’d always go to a place like this when he had time.”

He asks if she has a brother (no) and they start to trade other details of their lives. He’s less intimidating than she thought he’d be the first time she saw him. He’s not…brotherly exactly, more like the cool, older neighbor who gives you advice about growing up.

He is fifteen, like she guessed, and he laughs when she proudly declares that she  _totally_  knew that. She likes the sound, and notices the freckles across his laughter-wrinkled nose.

She’s never had a crush on a boy, but she imagines this might be how it feels.

The next time she dreams him, it’s five days later and she’s just had a horrible fight with her mother. She’d usually sneak over to Wells’ after something like this. He’d make her laugh and help her forget, just a little, but she can’t do that now, so she falls asleep with tears on her cheeks and a desperate plea to not feel so alone.

She doesn’t bother with milkshakes or pie when the diner materializes around her, just slides into their booth and drops her head to the table.

He doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. When he does, it’s quiet.

“C? You okay?”

She groans, rolls her head so she can look up at him through her hair, “No. I don’t have any friends.”

When she looks up again, he’s got his eyebrows raised at her and she reads it loud and clear,  _you’re being overdramatic._

So she sits up, takes a deep breath. “My best friend moved away the week after my dad died. I hate him.”

He doesn’t look sympathetic, which she thinks is kind of rude.

“Why did he move?”

She huffs. “His dad got a job somewhere else.”

“So he didn’t just  _leave_.”

“Technically, no. But he’s still gone.”

He laughs and it’s a little exasperated. She doesn’t like it. It makes her feel like a child.

“You should just call him.”

The thought of calling Wells, does make her feel better, a little. “Maybe.”

B’s drinking hot chocolate and she just now realizes that the hand holding his mug is strewn with angry red scabs across the knuckles.

“Did you get in a fight?”

He blinks at her like he’s surprised she noticed. “Yeah.”

“Over what?”

He turns away, “Nothing. Some guys just didn’t know when to stop talking.”

Her next words are quiet and even.

“You can’t get into fights all the time when you have your sister to look after.”

He looks like he’s going to argue with her, but instead he drops his head.

“I know.”

She’s not sure why she assumed his dad wasn’t around, but he’s never mentioned a father. This confirms it. She doesn’t say anything until a minute later.

“I know how you feel though. I want to fight people a lot of the time too.”

They meet eyes with matching grim smiles.

 

* * *

 

She does call Wells eventually, and mends that bridge. It’s good to have her best friend back, but it takes her a couple days to admit that B was right. He laughs when she tells him, but in a proud kind of way, and she can’t help smiling back.

 

* * *

 

The first time she feels herself  _called_  to the diner—a strange tug toward somewhere deeper when she falls asleep—it’s two months into…whatever this is, and it’s because B’s sister is in the hospital.

He’s at the booth, actually facing forward for once, one hand stretched out in front of him, the other running over his face and back through his hair. His eyes are red.

She approaches him carefully.

“Hey B,” she whispers as she sits down.

The look he gives her nearly breaks her heart.

“What’s wrong?” She scans his hands for new scrapes, but all she finds are the same healing scabs from last time.

When he doesn’t respond, she reaches forward, tentatively, to take the hand that’s still stretched across the table. She’s not sure what to do really, or if he even wants her comfort, but when she squeezes his hand lightly, he squeezes back.

“It’s my sister, O.” Like the dam is broken, words fall out of his mouth as he tells her about how his little sister got the flu and how she should have been fine, but somehow it kept getting worse and worse until their aunt had no choice but to take her to the hospital.

She tries to suggest that it might be a good thing, that she’s in the hospital. It means she’ll get the help she needs.

In a tight voice, he responds, “My aunt can’t afford it.”

Clarke has no idea what to say to that. She knows that she lives well, that her mother makes enough money that they never have to worry. She has no idea what to say, and it breaks her a little.

So when he leans his head down on the table, she does too. She rubs her thumb across the back of his hand and whispers, “It’ll be okay. She’ll be okay. You’ll figure something out.”

She repeats her useless mantra over and over and wonders how terrible things can happen to such wonderful people.

 

* * *

 

When she doesn’t see him for three days, she gets really worried, and her mother has to tell her to stop biting her nails. Clarke doesn’t tell her what’s wrong, because  _my imaginary friend’s sister is sick_ doesn’t really sit well on the tongue.

On the fourth night, she finds herself in the diner and relief washes through her. He’s at their booth already and when he sees her, he jumps up to swoop her up in a giant hug.

She laughs, taken aback, but hugs him back tightly.

“Everything’s okay,” he says when he puts her down.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. O’s doing better and I guess the hospital is gonna let us pay them back over time.” He grins at her, “I got a job, so now my aunt doesn’t even have to pay for it. Everything’s okay, just like you said it would be.”

She smiles, because his happiness is contagious, but inside she’s wondering what’s so okay about a fifteen year old having to pay his sister’s medical bills.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes she’s at the diner before him, and sometimes he doesn’t even show up. That’s okay too, because just being there is comforting. Plus, if she squints her eyes, she can make the clouds outside turn pink and form the shapes of prancing horses.

One night, a couple weeks after the scare with his sister, he comes in and joins her at the booth, flicking at her hair as he passes.

They sit for what feels like hours and just…talk. 

Clarke tells him that she maybe wants to be a doctor like her mom, but that she also wants to be an artist.

B looks at her like it’s the simplest thing in the world and asks her why she can’t be both.

His dreams are a little more down to earth, tinged by reality. He wants to be a history professor. (She kind of knows this already, whenever they don’t have anything to talk about, he tells her stories of Greek goddesses and tales of brave Roman soldiers.)

But he’s worried that it may never happen. Because college is expensive and he has his sister to look after.

Clarke tells him that if anyone can find a way to do it, it’s him, and he smiles at her, warming her toes.

That night is the first time she realizes he might be real. And it’s the first time she realizes that he might be her closest friend.

It’s not until the next day that she realizes she quite can’t remember his face when she’s awake.

 

* * *

 

He’s the most constant thing in her life aside from her mother and Wells, especially since she doesn’t really interact with the kids at her school beyond basic pleasantness.

She asks B if that’s strange and he tells her he was the same when he was in middle school.

“That’s because you  _like_  being a loner,” she teases, and he shoves her shoulder.

“I hang out with you, don’t I?”

“Yeah,” she grins, “We’re loners together.”

They go on that way for years. He’s the one who tells her that she’s better off ignoring any and all high school boys, because “they’re all just confused horny kids who only pretend to know what they’re doing.”

When she asks if that applies to him too, he only shrugs. “I work two part time jobs. I don’t have time to be horny. Definitely confused and only pretending to know what I’m doing though.”

She laughs and reaches across to ruffle his hair. “We’re you pretending? Cause that was pretty obvious to me.”

She’s the one who tells him that his overprotective act with his sister—who starts dating one of the aforementioned high school boys—is going to get old really fast.

“Horny and confused, C,” is all he says in response, but she thinks he looks at least a little contemplative, so she considers her job done.

 

* * *

 

By the time he’s a senior, and about to graduate, he’s nearly a foot taller than her because–as she claims when he gloats–she just hasn’t hit her growth spurt yet.

She’s only a sophomore and she feels their age difference more than ever. She has to remind herself constantly that he’s not like the seniors at her school, who act like they own the whole damn place.

He’s her B, and she doesn’t have to let things get weird.

The night after he graduates, she barrels into the diner to throw her arms around his neck. As close as they’ve become, they haven’t hugged like this since that first time and it takes him a second to respond. When he does though, his arms band around her back and she feels him smile into her neck.

For all the time they’ve spent together, he hasn’t mentioned college until that night, when he tells her that he’s not going. At least not now.

She moves to his side of the booth to wrap her hand around his, her leg pressed against his in a way she hopes is comforting.

“We can’t afford it. It sucks,” he seethes, slamming his other hand on the table.

She hates moments like these. Hates that she doesn’t have to worry about these things and he does. All she knows how to do is comfort him, so that’s what she does.

She leans her head on his shoulder. “I know B. It sucks and the  _world_  sucks and colleges don’t know that they’re missing out on your brilliant brain.” He manages a bit of a smile for her. “But lots of people take gap years, and then you can do two years a community college before a university, because there’s no point in overpaying for GE’s anyway.”

“You’ll go to a university straight out of high school.”

It’s not a question and he’s not wrong. Even now she knows that, which yeah, it’s pretty messed up.

“You’re right,” she says, voice small, “Because my mom is rich and part of a generation where most people  _could_  afford a university right out of high school. She’ll probably disown me if I don’t go.”

He drops his head to rest against hers. “I know. Shit. I know that. I’m sorry.”

She squeezes his hand. “You don’t have to be. I hate that I can’t make this better for you.”

He lifts his head to grin at her, “Don’t feel too sorry for me. I’m officially free of the clutches of tests and homework and you’ve still got two whole years of high school.”

She shoves him toward thew window, “Jerk.”

 

* * *

 

Her junior year she blames him for not telling her how hard AP tests and the SAT are.

“How is AP Bio this hard?” she groans. “If I have to memorize one more fucking phylum tree I’m gonna gouge my eyes out. You never made it seem this bad.”

His laugh is low and quiet, just how she likes it. “I also, you know,  _didn’t take AP Bio._  Because, one, I didn’t have a death wish, and two, I wanted to study history, not science.”

“Yeah, well,” she quips sarcastically, “We can’t all live your charmed life.”

 

* * *

 

When he tells her he’s enrolling in community college only a year later, she’s ecstatic and hugging him all over again.

“It’s because of you, you know,” he murmurs into her neck.

She pulls back as he sets her back on her feet, and looks at him quizzically.

“You told me I could do it, like there was no doubt. I never really thought I’d be able to until then.”

She laughs and pulls him close again, “There  _wasn’t_  any doubt, you melodramatic loser.”

He digs his fingers into her sides in response and she pushes him away with a shriek, only to dissolve into laughter with him a moment later.

 

* * *

 

He’s the first one she tells about her admission to her first choice college. She doesn’t tell him which one and he doesn’t ask, but it’s exciting just the same.

“B! I got in!”

She crashes down on his side of the booth and he laughs as he wraps his arms around her.

“Just like I said you would.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” she waves a hand, “Listen though, they’ve got a good pre-med program  _and_ a good art program.” She can barely contain her giddy excitement.

Maybe she doesn’t have to worry about money, but she got in through her own hard work and she’s pretty damn proud of herself. It’s the first time she feels like she can be someone outside of her mother’s shadow.

“That’s great.  _You’re_  gonna be great.” B says.

His confidence in her means everything and they sit there for what feels like ages, Clarke leaned up against his chest, his hand playing idly with her hair. Chatting about everything and nothing like they have since she was thirteen.

It’s not real, she tells herself, but, god, does it feel that way.

 

* * *

 

She never lets herself admit that she’s in love with him. It’s pretty easy, since she doesn’t think he’s real, and, besides, she’s always been pretty good at kidding herself.

Her first year of college, she dates Finn and he dates a girl called Roma and it’s fine. Good, even. They sit on opposite sides of the booth again, but they still talk like best friends. He updates her on the road to becoming a history professor and how his community college actually has a bunch of great Greek and Roman classes. She teases him for being a nerd before telling him about the latest horrors of being pre-med. (He asks how he’s the nerd when she’s the one taking two chem classes in one semester, and she laughs.)

 

* * *

 

Clarke’s roommate, Raven, is slightly terrifying and probably the best thing to ever happen to her. They become friends in a way that’s easy and unexplainable. She’s majoring in mechanical engineering, so they’re both swamped, like,  _always_ , but Raven still manages to pull Clarke out to parties now and then.

Things are awkward for about five minutes when Clarke finds out she’s dating her roommate’s ex of five years, but Raven shrugs it off like it’s nothing.

And when she and Finn break up, it’s Raven who tells her that he’s a dick and she deserves better. (B tells her the same thing the very same night, which she forces herself to believe is only because she made him say it; a remnant in her brain from Raven’s earlier words.)

She tells Raven about B one night when they’re passing a bottle of champagne back and forth after a rough round of midterms. She’s admittedly tipsier than she intended to be.

“So you’re in love with your imaginary friend,” Raven deadpans.

“Are you really more concerned about that than the fact that I’ve dreamed about the same person for the last six years?” Clarke waves her arms clumsily, nearly knocking over the bottle between them, “I might as well be institutionalized, Rae. This shit is weird.”

Her roommate just picks up the bottle to take another swig. “But you don’t deny that you’re in love with him.”

“I don’t know what he looks like except that he’s male and has dark, curly hair.”

“So you’re definitely in love with him. Oh my god, is this why you and Finn didn’t work?”

“Finn and I didn’t work because Finn is Finn. You know that.”

Raven nods solemnly. “Okay but those are some oddly specific dreams for him to be as not-real as you say, you have to admit.” She raises an eyebrow.

“Lucid dreaming is a thing.” It wasn’t for Clarke though, not before she met him. But how the fuck could he be real? She’d have to be crazy to believe that. “Anyway, even if he is real, he’s dating someone, so, no prospects there. Plus I’m pretty sure he sees me as a little sister.”

“Please,” Raven scoffs, “no guy can look at your boobs and think of you like a sister.”

“You hitting on me Reyes? You know I’d say yes if you asked.”

“Please, babe, we’d last all of five days before going doing in flames.”

“Yeah, but what a way to go.”

Raven raises her glass to that.

 

* * *

 

There’s this stunning girl in Clarke’s bio class who she’s pretty sure would agree to go out with her, if she asked.

She doesn’t though. Because,  _fuck it,_  she’s in love with her imaginary friend.

She doesn’t tell him, of course, which should maybe be a tip-off that she doesn’t  _really_  think he’s fake—where’s the loss in confessing your love for a figment of your imagination?—but she’s too far down that road to change her mind now.

He tells her that he and Roma didn’t work out just a few days later and she does her best to push away her feelings and be a supportive friend. She sits on his side of the booth again, and takes his hand like that first time she comforted him.

“I’m really sorry B.”

He’s quiet for a long time, and when he finally speaks, it’s after leaning in to her a little, his fingers tightening around hers. “It’s for the best, I think.”

 

* * *

 

Whenever she goes to the diner after that, things are different. Like some tiny, crucial detail has shifted.

She sits on his side again, like she used to. Now though, he takes her hand automatically when she sits down, and laces his fingers through hers even though neither of them need comforting.

She leans against him more heavily than she ever let herself before and whenever silences stretch on, he takes to carding the fingers of his free hand through her hair.

It crosses her mind more than a few times that, if she wanted to, she could kiss him. They’re both unattached, and somehow she doesn’t think he’d complain.

She never does though. She can’t imagine kissing him here and then going back to a reality where he doesn’t exist.

 

* * *

 

Their second year of college, she and Raven move from the dorms into a tiny, but clean, apartment five minutes from campus. They get a third roommate, a freshman named Octavia, who snaps up their offer when they post it on Ark U’s facebook page.

“It’s cheaper than the dorms, after they force you to pay for a meal plan,” she says when they meet for the first time, “Plus you guys don’t seem like serial killers. So that’s an added bonus.”

They like her immediately.

The three of them are all relatively clean and low maintenance, so it ends up working pretty well. By the end of zero week, they’re already growing close, and the night before classes finds them huddled on the small couch, Clarke in the middle with Octavia’s feet in her lap while the younger girl tries to throw popcorn into Raven’s mouth.

“You guys are missing the best part,” Clarke says, gesturing to the laptop screen in front of them where they’re watching a show that none of them really care that much about.

All she gets in response is a handful of popcorn thrown at her head. She laughs and lunges for the bowl in Octavia’s hands and all pretense of watching the show is lost as a popcorn war overtakes their living room.

 

* * *

 

The next day, she leaves a bit early to stop by the campus coffee shop. Caffeination is vital for anything earlier than 10 am. She rattles off her order to the barista while staring at the menu board, because even now she always feels like she’s going to say the wrong fancy French word.

She looks back down as he scribbles her order and proceeds to nearly choke on her own breath.

He looks  _just_ like B.

Which is a weird thought for her to have, considering she doesn’t really know what B looks like. But looking at this guy somehow makes her remember; deep, expressive eyes, strong jaw, freckles. _Freckles._  God, how could she have forgotten the freckles?

_It’s not him,_ she tells herself.  _It’s literally impossible._

By the time she stops staring, she’s missed him reading out her total. “Oh yeah. Sorry, here.” She pays him and moves along, not particularly eager to get called out for staring at a stranger.

It leaves her shaken though, the fact that she can remember so much more of what he looks like now. She goes over this new information in her mind all day, details she never had before;  _freckles, eyes, jaw_. She’s still thinking about it when she comes back to the apartment that night.

She hears Octavia’s voice first as she unlocks the door.

“Jesus Bell, relax. They’re nice people. I’ve been living here for a week and they haven’t murdered me yet.”

_Must be the brother_. Octavia mentioned a protective sibling, Bellamy, she vaguely remembers, when they did their introductions.

And then she hears his voice.

“You don’t know them, O. You should be in the dorms with the rest of the freshmen.”

She’s left completely breathless for the second time that day.

Because  _that’s B’s voice_. One hundred percent. She’s never forgotten his voice the way she’d forgets his face, and this is definitely it.

Even then, it’s not until she turns the corner that she tips over the edge into belief. Because it’s him. The barista from that morning. And he’s got B’s voice. And his name is Bellamy and he has a sister named Octavia, who he calls O.

It’s one coincidence too many, and suddenly she actually believes that her imaginary friend is real.

…until he ruins it by being a total ass.

He notices her in the doorway and looks up. “You guys are gonna have to find someone else,” he says, matter-of-fact, “O’s leaving.”

“Like hell I am Bell!”

Clarke interrupts, “Look, we’re college students. We don’t have time to murder your sister.” She doesn’t care who he is, he’s being a dick. “So why don’t you drop the overprotective act and let your sister make her own choices?”

Octavia looks like she’s ready to die of embarrassment until she looks down at her watch. “Shit! I’m so late for work.  _Shit._ ” She grabs her bag from the couch and rushes to the door.

“I’m not moving out Bellamy,” she says, stubborn, looking back when she opens the door, “We can talk more later, just—,” she raises a hand toward where they’re still standing, “please don’t kill my roommate? She’s actually really cool.”

And then she’s gone.

Bellamy casts Clarke a dark look. “You don’t know me, Princess. Or my sister. Don’t presume to know what’s right for her.”

He turns to leave too, except apparently Clarke’s not giving up that easy.

She snaps. Because he’s being an ass, and because she doesn’t want to believe this is who she thinks it is.  _Princess? Where did that come from?_

“I do though,” she sneers, “I know that you’ve been overprotective of her since you were 15 years old and you got a job to pay her medical bills.”

He turns back to face her, looking stunned, and it spurns her to keep going.

“Which is all well and good until you decided she wasn’t allowed to date anyone in high school. And apparently your head is still so far up your  _overprotective ass_  that you won’t let her live on her own. She’s an adult, for fucks sake!”

If he was surprised before, he’s livid now, and he takes one menacing step toward her. “You. Don’t. Know. Me. Keep your damn mouth shut and your nose in your own business.”

She snorts a hysterical laugh, because, honestly, what the fuck is going on? “I know you’re trying to become a history professor. I know you took a gap year because you couldn’t afford college yet.” The words fall from her lips faster than she can stop them, “I know you work two jobs now to pay for you and your sister. I know you broke up with Roma but you weren’t actually that upset about it, and I know that you’ve been dreaming about the same goddamn girl for the last seven years!”

He’s staring at her like she’s actually, clinically insane as she heaves deep breaths.

It takes her a second to think that maybe she  _is_. That maybe the stunned look he’d given her should have been taken as confusion rather that confirmation of truth.

Reality hits her, hard. What is she thinking? That this is actually the boy she dreams about? He doesn’t exist. She knows that. She’s always known that. And now she’s just yelled total nonsense at her roommate’s angry brother.

“Fuck. I’m sorry,” She manages, before fleeing to the bedroom, her legs cooperative where her mouth isn’t.

She locks the door behind her and collapses onto her bed. Her heart feels like lead.

_Fuck._

He’s not him. He’s not her B. Her B doesn’t fucking  _exist_  and she’s been so  _delusional_  to think for a second he could. And now she’s gone fucking crazy on her roommate’s brother and they really are going to have to find somebody else, because if he didn’t want O to stay before, he’s certainly not letting her stay now.

She lets out a breathless laugh.  _O and B_. What are the chances? The universe has got to be screwing with her.

The thing that keeps running through her head, though, that keeps  _breaking_ her, is this:  _He’s not real._ _He’s not real and you were stupid and naïve to think he could be._

She wants to scream.

Before she can though, there’s a knock at the bedroom door.

His voice is muffled through the wood. “Uh, Clarke, right? Listen, can I talk to you for a second?”

Shit. Okay. She can at least try to fix the mess she’s made.

She opens the door, apology at her lips, but he cuts her off, looking  _sheepish_  of all things.

“My, um…” he rubs the back of his neck, “I have this friend who’s always telling me I need to take it easy on O. And she’s right. And clearly Octavia trusts you, because, uh…” His face is becoming increasingly redder. “Look, I’m glad O trusts you enough to tell you all that stuff about me, but…that’s personal alright? So I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t advertise my life story to anyone.”

Her heart’s pounding in her ears.  _There’s no way…_

Voice quiet, she asks,“It’s true?” 

“Huh?”

“All those things I said…they’re true?”  _There’s no way._   _He can’t be._

She’s trying not to get her hopes up…and failing pretty badly. Her hands are shaking.

“Uh. Yeah. Just—I know it’s weird alright, so if you could just forget it—”

“Oh my god,” she breathes, “You don’t know. You really don’t know.” Her voice wavers but there’s a smile on her face that won’t stop growing. “Octavia didn’t tell me any of those things.”

He looks more confused by the second, but she can’t stop  _staring_  and  _smiling._

“My name’s Clarke,” she says. “As in, my first initial is C.” She takes a deep breath, “I’ve been dreaming about a diner and a boy with messy dark hair since I was thirteen.”

Emotions pass across his face in quick succession, but she  _knows_ him, and she catalogs each one; confusion, hope, then confusion again, disappointment, more hope. He looks at her, really  _looks_  at her, and she can see the exact moment it clicks into place.

“C?” he gapes, “But, you’re not…How are you…?”

“Real? You tell me.”

He’s still staring at her until he shakes his head, “No, you…you went to some ivy league. You’re too good for Ark.”

She laughs then, because it’s  _exactly_ what he would say, and  _holy shit_  this is really her person. 

“That’s sweet, B…Bellamy,” she corrects, testing the name on her tongue, “But I told you; I found a school with a good pre-med  _and_  art program. And I never wanted to go to an ivy league anyway. Besides, Ark’s a damn good school.”

He finally smiles, a blinding thing that fills his whole face, and  _god, how has she gone so long without remembering that smile?_  Then he’s swooping her up into a crushing hug and she laughs, twisting her arms around his neck.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, it’s you. You’re real.”

“I’m real,” she whispers into his neck, reveling in the solidness of him.  _Real._

She tells him how she could never remember his face until this morning, her words punctuated with giddy laughter.

He pulls back from her to study her face, his palms on either side of her jaw like she’s something precious. “Me too. How did I never remember? I just—fuck I never thought you could be  _real._ ”

His thumb traces the birthmark above her lip and she shivers. He’s still taller than her now, but not by as much. She only has to look up a little to meet his eyes.

“Me neither,” she says, “I hoped though.”

“Did you now?” He’s got his best teasing smile on his face, the one she’s seen a thousand times before.

“Yeah, but that was before I knew you were still an overprotective asshole,” she says, grinning, pushing at his shoulder just enough that he has to take a step back.

Not phased, he steps back toward her, closer than before, and his voice is serious, honest, “I’m working on it.”

He cradles her face in his hands again, and her hands find his waist.

When his lips touch hers, everything, inexplicably, feels  _right._

It’s slow and soft and gentle. When his lips move against hers, he feels like home and comfort and familiarity. Then she’s running her tongue against his lower lip, seeking entrance, because all she has isn’t enough and she needs to know more, _everything_  about him.

She feels like someone’s lit a fire in her as she presses herself against him, her hands in his hair, and his in hers and everything is radiantly, incandescently  _perfect-–_ until she hears Raven unlocking the front door.

She pulls back from him, breathless, her lips warm and hair a mess. He, too, looks  _really_ well kissed and then she’s laughing all over again, folding herself against his chest, because  _he’s real. He’s real._

“That’s the other roommate,” she says into his shoulder.

He tightens his harms around her as he buries his face in her hair. “I don’t like her so much right now.”

“Anybody home?” Raven calls.

Clarke laughs, extracting herself from Bellamy’s embrace to takes his hand. “She’s not so bad,” she says quietly. Then, to Raven, “Hey Rae.”

“Hey,” Raven calls back, still in the other room, “How were classes?”

“Good!” Bellamy looks at her, eyebrows raised in question, and she laughs, and gets on with it. “Hey, do you remember that guy I always have dreams about?”

“Sure, the one you’re totally in love with.”

Oh.  _Shit._  She can feel her face turn a million shades of red.

When she chances a look at Bellamy though, he’s…beaming. Which is a way better reaction than she was expecting. He waggles her eyebrows at her and she slaps his arm before pushing forward to kiss him chastely.

“Clarke? What about him?”

Clarke tugs on his hand, pulling him out of the bedroom and into the living area. 

“It turns out he’s Octavia’s overprotective brother,” she says bluntly.

Raven’s at the table, back turned to them, but she turns around at Clarke’s words, “Wait what?”

Her eyes go wide as she registers Bellamy’s presence and Clarke watches her gaze flick down to where their hands are twined together.

“This is him? Wait,  _what?_ He’s real? Tell me you’re fucking with me.”

“Nope,” Clarke chirps happily.

“Okay, one,” Raven says, tearing her eyes from Bellamy back to her roommate, “ _Nice._ ”

Clarke shrugs.  He is pretty hot.

“I’m literally right here.”

“Right, sorry,” Raven says. Clarke pats his arm.

“Okay, so two, what the fuck are the chances? It’s one thing for you to be real. How are you  _here_?”

It’s a good question. Of all the colleges they could have gone to, they both somehow ended up at this one?

“My aunt lives about twenty miles from here,” Bellamy says, “it’s the closest nearby university.” He shrugs, “There’s a bunch of scholarships and stuff so it actually wasn’t too bad.”

Before Clarke can ask, he’s answering her next question, “Octavia can afford it too because she’s been working. She got a job her junior year of high school after she kept begging me, and after  _someone_ ,” he nudges Clarke’s shoulder, “kept telling me I need to let her take on her own responsibility.”

“This is a thing that’s actually happening,” Raven grasps, shaking her head, “You’re literally her imaginary friend. Shit. I need a drink.”

They look on in amusement as she pulls on her jacket, “I’m going out. Don’t have sex on the couch.”

“No promises, honestly,” Clarke murmurs under her breath, which gets her a pink tinge to Bellamy’s ears and an “I heard that, Griffin!” from her roommate.

Telling Octavia, when she gets home later that night, goes basically the same, but with a lot more excited squealing and hugs.

“This means she can stay now, right?” Clarke asks him afterwards, teasing.

“Mmmm, I don’t know,” he says, pulling her back up against his chest, crossing his arms in front of her, “Raven seems cool, but the other girl’s a little weird. I hear she still has an imaginary friend.”

Clarke tries to slap him—a difficult feat with him behind her and her arms pinned to her sides—and Octavia looks on, cooing over how adorable they are.

 

* * *

 

Clarke stops at the coffee shop again the next morning, even though she doesn’t have class til 2. The grin that breaks out on Bellamy’s face when he catches sight of her is pretty damn amazing.

“Hey stranger,” she says, walking up to the register.

He looks around the fairly empty shop for a second before ducking under the counter to catch her up in a searing kiss.

“Well if it isn’t the literal girl of my dreams,” he says when he pulls back, breathing a little uneven.

She grins, “Aren’t you lucky?”

“I really am,” he teases back. He grows serious after a second, “I’m totally in love with you, too. You know that right?”

She forces herself to breath normally and catches his hand, tangling their fingers.

“I do now.” She pushes up on her tiptoes to touch her forehead to his. “I’m still getting used to the fact that you’re not a figment of my imagination. I can’t quite believe I don’t have to wait to fall asleep to see you, anymore.” She pauses, looking up into his eyes, “I get you all the time now.”

“Yeah. You do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on [tumblr!](http://goldenheadfreckledheart.tumblr.com)


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